Producer Interview - Saint Idiot

What first got you into sound production?

I think as someone who has a lot of trouble with harmonic theory, I had no choice but to pay more attention to the way a thing sounds. Instead of spending a lot of time exploring the vertical/horizontal movement of music, I hyper-focused on the texture itself, and started discovering that every sound has a range of behaviour, and that a lot of emoting in music is in the way a single note in a guitar lick crackles just right, or how a synth pad can give you a very specific sense of space, right down to how your body feels in it. Some of my favourite moments in other artist's music are really odd things other people would consider production errors like the crackle of a guitar jack just before the beat comes in that gives the whole phrase so much more anticipation and forward momentum. It's obviously not as simple as this, but if there was a separation between the notes as “content” and their sonic properties as “flavor,” I'm the flavor person.

How would you describe your sound?

Curious, exploratory, space-driven, inhabited. I want to craft music that people consume with their headphones in an armchair. My favourite part of music is it's ability to transport people and make them feel like they're coming into contact with a fantastical and elusive reality that is really out there somewhere, so I think I naturally gravitate towards music that attempts to do that.

What inspires your sound?

I meditate, and I frequently practice Deep Listening meditation, so I think consciously or subconsciously I draw a lot on the sound environment. I'm also really inspired by film, literature, and visual art, so I think that a sense of narrative and physicality comes into play for me too. In a more concrete way, I'm really inspired by musicians like Björk, Bowie, Laurie Anderson, Julia Holter, Holly Herndon, Motion Graphics, Visible Cloaks, and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, and in broader ways, the art of, say, David Lynch, and the possibilities opened by worldviews like Buddhism and magick.

What do you like most about making sounds?

I like the two extremes—either playing with an unpredictable system like feedback or no-input mixing boards, in which case you're always reaching into a bag of things blindly and pulling something out and then having to improvise with it, or the opposite, which is the complete control of the modern studio, where I can carve at a mix or particular sound until I feel exactly what I set out to feel. I can either risk it and go for a ride and tap into something bigger than myself, or, for a few hours, I can feel like I am in complete control of something.

Where is your favourite place/the most unusual place you have heard one of your sounds?

I do a lot of field recording, and among the many sounds I've been able to capture, three of my favorites are from Japan. Chattering foxes at Miyagi Zao, a mountain reserve near Sendai where hundreds of foxes are reared, are my undisputed favourite, probably because the sound, while oh-so-emotive and rich, is also so evocative of the whole experience of trekking out there and brimming with glee—under-dressed—in the alpine air. Close seconds are the ambience of a pachinko arcade in Shinjuku, and the blistering sound of an F1 racing car engine ripping around Spoon Corner on the Suzuka circuit.

Who have you worked with? Have you done any collaborations? What has been your favourite one?

I've worked with Hill Kourkoutis (Serena Ryder, The Weeknd, July Talk, and Leela Gilday) on the current album I'm releasing, Alternate Utopias from a Nostalgic Future, which inspired this sample pack. She's absolutely legendary—she took upwards of 60 tracks for each song, full of all these strange sound design sounds and details, and made it all sit right, which is commendable. She has an incredible ear for carving space like that.

I haven't had a chance to collaborate much with anyone else, but I will tell you that my dream collaborators are Motion Graphics, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Cosmo Sheldrake, and actually, the comedian Duncan Trussell who does some real fun music mix stuff for his podcast.

If you didn't become a sound producer, what would you be doing right now?

I either would've joined a Tibetan Buddhist monastery by now or tried to tried to become a serious mountain biker. Maybe both. I don't know. I was brought up Roman Catholic and then drifted away from that, but I've found myself extremely magnetized to the spiritual in the last few years, particularly to the beautiful altruism of Buddhist living. I'm definitely nowhere near self-less, which is probably why it calls to me so much.

What’s a quote you live by?

If you hadn't pinched my nose, my conventional truth would've prevailed.

Do you have any hobbies or interests outside of music?

I love mountain biking as of late, so I'm just now learning how to ride terrain and features. I also really love cooking whenever I actually make time for it, especially if I get to do it with my partner—I find that the act of cooking seems to nurture more than just your stomach. I also love reading, and I've been exploring a lot of esoteric spiritual topics. 

What can we expect to see in future from you? 

Creating this sample pack was extremely fun for me, so you can definitely expect another one. I've already got designs on the next album as well. I'd like to explore the audio-visual cross-over a lot more, so there might be some more synesthetic works down the road.